The long-awaited return of Paul Nuttall

Fun times could be ahead for avid gaffe-watchers: former Ukip Leader Paul Nuttall is back in frontline politics as Reform’s vice chairman.

Nuttall has been given a brief by Nigel Farage to handle election planning, having led Ukip to winning precisely zero seats at the 2017 general election. A “six-week summer offensive” by the Reform party will begin on July 21.

Readers with long memories might remember Nuttall as the second of the nine permanent leaders Ukip has had in the nine years since Farage stepped down in 2016. He led the party from November 2016 to June 2017, succeeding the short-lived Diane James. His time in office was marked by claims that he had been present and “lost close personal friends” at the Hillsborough disaster, that he had a PhD and had played football for Tranmere Rovers. None of these things were true.

Suggested Reading

Richard Madeley meets his match in David Bull

Rats in a Sack

He resigned the day after the 2017 general election, in which the party’s share of the vote dropped from 12.6% to 1.8% and the party lost its only MP. The last anyone heard of him he was said to be completing his PhD, on the history of the Conservative Party.

Reform’s other new vice-chair is Anne Marie Morris, a former Conservative MP who was suspended for using the N-word in a debate about Brexit at the East India Club.

And the party’s actual chair is David Bull, who began his reign last month by giving an interview in which he claimed the spirit of his dead grandmother travelled in the boot of his car before entering the body of Derek Acorah and being expelled by another phantom who tried to strangle him. What an A-team!